


Stray bits of matter and space dust

by outlier



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 03:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21029534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outlier/pseuds/outlier
Summary: The schism between the In-Ze sisters and the destruction of Krypton as seen through the eyes of the ineffable nightmare that lives under your bed.





	Stray bits of matter and space dust

You can't blame the ineffable. They've been ineffable since the beginning of time.

The ineffable has been ineffable since before stray bits of matter and space dust arranged themselves into planets. It was a largely boring process, this arranging, at least when viewed from a distance. There was a great deal of fanfare at the start, lots of collisions and explosions that tickled and itched, but once the initial fuss died down, the process slowed to a crawl.

So, the ineffable slept, stretched out among the stars, never-ending and bored.

The point is, the ineffable has been around for a long, long time. This nightmare under the bed thing got stale a few generations after its people discovered beds, which was many, many cycles ago. They're always scared of the same things, so these days, the ineffable just tosses up a nightmare occasionally. There was a time (the ineffable is not proud) when it tested its bounds. There were accidents, as there sometimes are. Some people went mad. They were more fragile than it thought. Drive people mad and the chances of there being more people grows slimmer. It's not that the ineffable wants to be without purpose, so that was enough of that.

Being ineffable isn't all that exciting in the end. There's always a burst of excitement when a new child is added to its ineffable collection - maybe this one will be scared of something new! But no, it's always the same. People laugh at them or chase them or call them names. The ineffable doesn't have the energy to push these days, so fine. They'll be up in front of the council with no robes on.

But then... well, there are twins. That's new. The ineffable finds itself split in two in a way it hasn't experienced before, and that hurts. Well, hurts at first, but thankfully, the twins are halves of a whole, just like it is halves of a whole. And they fight and they sulk, but they often end up in the same bed, and the ineffable can curl up around itself and be content.

One day, there's a sharp pain. A rent, a split, a tearing apart, and its other half is gone. It's unreachable, even for an ineffable.

It's still searching, still sure its other half is somewhere - it would know, wouldn't it? You can't destroy the ineffable, at least not without a little fanfare, but there's nothing. There's a reaching out with nothing to reach back, and the ineffable hasn't ever mourned anything, but it understands the feeling. Its people have dreamed about this, loss that cuts straight through to the quick.

And then... so much of it is just _gone_.

It has so little of itself left. So little that it feels the loss of another of its pieces like the loss of a limb. It knows that too. It learned the horror of that from the way its people had quaked in terror when they awoke, reassuring themselves with frantic, shaky, unwieldy urgency.

It was once mighty, but now it is small.

It floats through space, as empty as an ineffable can be.

Time has little meaning for an ineffable. It measures time in the passing of its people, and the dreams and nightmares that accompany life. Nightmares start like the ineffable itself, a yawning chasm of emptiness, and maybe there is no one there. Maybe there's no one to hear cries, to hold, to shush. The ineffable feels most at home in these nightmares, knows them to be that of new life. These nightmares teach that there will be someone to answer cries, and that someone will love and cherish and hold tight.

The nightmares end in a way the ineffable understands, fears of nothingness again, and of fading out of memory. Fears of tasks gone undone and love that can't be spent, all of this drifting out into the great unknown, and the ineffable knows that soon, it will come back to itself.

So it floats and it mourns and its dreams join with that of its person's. Loss. Endless loss. The sense that it isn't whole, that there's no rest to be found.

It wonders if maybe it's time to rest. It thinks maybe there's no choice, that the day will come when its person lays down her head for the last time, and they will both be ineffable. They will join the black and the space, and if they let themselves get lost among the stars, maybe they'll find their missing parts.

It is very tired, after all.

It closes its eyes, and its person is glad her nights pass without dreams.

And then... the ineffable feels the awareness like a fog, soft and intangible, but it _knows_. Its other half is so far away, but what is distance to an ineffable? What is time? What is waiting?

In the blink of an ineffable eye, there is more. There is another piece of itself reappearing in the universe, just as distant, but _there_.

It knows longing. Its person feels it deeply, as deeply endless as the ineffable itself.

It's not the ineffable's job, but it creeps back into her dreams. It shows her hope, shows her family, shows her possibilities. Together, they wait.

(Its ineffable twin sends across the galaxies a single message. _It's about fucking time_.)


End file.
